P4


 


Beyond the plughole


Andrew Holdsworth describes how his school uses music, song and drama to bring the curriculum to life for the pupils.






Chloë is a gifted girl. She excels at dance and drama and has a beautiful singing voice. But elsewhere in the curriculum she struggles. There are children like Chloë in every class in the UK, and several at my school, Hurst Lodge. Some years ago I started thinking about how a child’s enthusiasm for drama and music could be harnessed to help them in other areas of the curriculum such as history, maths and science.






There's a song in the air


An obvious place to start was with times tables. Few of us have fond memories of chanting tables by rote and for many this technique doesn’t work. So between the number- orientated choruses of my songs, I wrote verses about the adventures of a fictional character, Percy Parker, who used times tables to solve problems and have fun.


Junior school children took turns to record the song on to CDs. Within days I was taking calls from parents encouraging me to write more. Many children were retaining information just by singing along with a CD in their bedroom. They were learning without realising they were learning.


It struck me this approach could be even more effective if we incorporated drama into our next project.


 


An equal footing


Drama is a great leveller, as aptitude and confidence in the classroom often don’t translate to the stage. Many of our best actors have some learning difficulty, and children can benefit hugely from having the opportunity to excel on stage.


We set ourselves the task of taking role-play from the classroom, combining it with song, and making it into something children of all abilities could enjoy and benefit from.


 


Does your bathtub fly?


After a considerable amount of brainstorming, we decided the best vehicle for our journey through the junior curriculum would be a flying bathtub that could transport pupils to any historical period and geographical location they might choose.


We began to create each ‘time-travelling’ adventure by improvising. Improvisation is always fun. It encourages teamwork, provides an outlet for self- expression, and stimulates empathic and creative thinking.


Our first scene was based on the lives of Victorian children: this way history became less a series of facts, more an adventure through time – with a corresponding increase


 


Continued on p5





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